The Bill Simmons Podcast - UConn’s Miracle, Weirdest NBA Season Ever, A Scary Playoff Team Draft, and an Iffy Expansion Plan With Zach Lowe

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Join The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe LIVE on Netflix right after Knicks vs. Thunder to react to UConn’s buzzer beater against Duke before diving into a scary playoff team draft (0:32). Then, they discuss the NBA expansion plans and take a deep dive into the weirdest NBA season’s ever (01:01:29). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zach Lowe Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Sam’s Club | Join The Club of Yes And Bundle and Save Book now on Expedia.com The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You can also find the rewatchables where it is almost the end of CR month, Zach. We have LA Confidential is going to be the last week. watchables we put up on Monday. This was a great basketball weekend. I know you're not a huge college troops guy, but you are a Connecticut guy. And we had one of the great comebacks of all time. So we're going to get a whole bunch of NBA stuff. But we had an unbelievable Yukon comeback end game winner against Duke. And I was thinking like when you have these, when you're down like basically 20 and you're heading into the second half and we see this scenario with NBA college all the time. It's basically the two-part comeback followed by some sort of mini-marical is the way it

goes down, right? You go from 20 to like 11. Then you're around between 9 and 11 for a while. And then you make that one last run to get to within 2-3, but then you still need some help. And they got some help. So did you see the last play? And did you feel like that was a great U-Con player, a terrible Duke play? First of all, what a delight. This is two years in a row that Duke loses late in the tournament and just epic fashion. We can all agree anybody but Duke and just truly an insane end to the game.

I can't say that I saw a lot of it, but I saw the last 30 or 40 seconds of the game. You know, I guess Boozer got a little flack for, did he panic? Couldn't he have just held onto the ball and gotten fouled? That's like kind of an instinctual play, right? Like you think you're being smart by like,

oh, we're going to run the clock. I'll just lob it up and crazy to play. I think it was a great play. Like the steel was great. The pass and pass back was great. Obviously, the shot is an all-time killer shot. And Dan Hurley, another round for your Yukon Huskies, baby. It was honestly a great, great, great coaching job.

Sometimes I feel like college coaches almost get too much credit because they're the only constants at these schools and the camera's always showing them. He was like, knock it. They were down 19, 17, 19, 15. And he was on the sidelines. Like it was a two-point game, just going crazy. He was doing this one.

with the crowd heading into timeouts. Yeah, he's a psycho. Dan's a psycho. But he just basically wouldn't let them quit. But I felt like that, first of all, I don't know why every college team does impress. Like,

if you have great athletes, I think you should at least know how to like trap press into some form, right? So they get, they're basically down to they missed first free throw at the second. And they're like, we can get the ball back. We practice this.

We're ready. And they get poor Kate and Boozer in the middle of the court. And honestly, it was like one of those plays where like five things had to happen perfectly at the same time. They send the two guys rushing at him, right? He's got two teammates wide open 50 feet away. You can see his thinking. Like there are two guys on me.

Like all I got to do is roll one pass. The game's over. But the problem is that because Yukon practices all the time. They know, oh, either he thinks we're going to foul or not. If he starts to throw to the wide open guys, we're just jumping up like this. And they were like synchronized swimmers the way they both went up at the same time tipped it. But then the kid had to make a 38 foot shot. And it's not like he was red hot during the game either.

So unbelievable when, I don't know, did you see the CBS? They had the camera on Grant Hill and Bill Raftery. I did not. Bill Raftery almost dies. They cut to him. Don't joke about that. I know you. I'm telling you watch it.

It happens and he goes. He kind of like, it's like, like he saw like a demonic force in a living room or something. Did onions? It was devastated. Did onions come out at all? Did we get on onions? He couldn't speak. Okay.

But this was a really, it was a really fun tournament from a talent standpoint, but the games, I don't think this weekend measured up. And then we got this awesome game. We're going to talk lottery in a second. We just watched OKC, New York. There was a really interesting SGA MVP movement that has. happened over the last week since I saw you seven days ago in this podcast when he was minus, I think minus 1500 for MVP. By the time we got through this morning, he was minus

320 and everybody had kind of hopped in the Wemby MVP car and driven around a little bit to see how it felt. And we've talked about, I already said he was the best part I saw in personal all year. I see the case. I just think this SGA, this is ridiculous. SGA should be the MVP. He proved it again today. Are we just bored? What's your take on the SGA versus Wembe thing? I don't think we're bored. I think the number one seed would probably have an outsized importance to a lot of voters.

I think it's a little silly that, you know, if there's a tie in the Spurs win the tiebreaker, we give it to Wembenyama. If you weigh that reason that heavily, it's a little silly. But it's, I mean, it is, they have what, they're 23 and one in the last 24 games he's played. I mean, it does mean something that they just never lose when he plays. Their net rating is approaching plus 20 per 100 possessions when he's on the floor. Their defense is approaching like ludicrous speed insane levels when he's on the floor. And he is an all encompassing force on one end of the floor all the time, every possession. And the offense is starting to come.

And he's starting to figure out where to get his touches, how to play with all these guards, how not to force things when there are easier ways for him to get buckets and just suck the entire defense toward him in the lane. I don't think it's, I don't think with all four of these guys at the top, I think you have to sit with each of them because they're each doing such historic stuff. But you just come back to this is going to be, if they hold on, it's a wire to wire number one seed for the thunder. It's another year in which a lot of the supporting cast is injured for good parts of

the season. And it's a guard shooting 55% from the floor and being and being a plus defensively. Like it's just, it's outrageous. It's a guard having as good of a regular season on a really, really good to great team as we've ever had in the league. Right. 55%. Think about what you just said. Think about what you just said. Yeah. It's it's on par with Jordan Magic pick an MVP season. So if the spurs were able to pass them and get the number one seed, I'm ready to have that conversation. I just don't think OKC's going to let it up. The big thing to me, I noticed this over, though,

maybe like four or five days ago, I started looking this up. The minutes thing with Wembe and just the history of the MVP, right? So he would have, right now, I don't think he's in the top 100 for total minutes played. I think he's at like, it's like 1600, 1650, something like that.

And you go through the history of the award. And I do think this matters. Of course it matters. Bill Walt in the 78 season when he got hurt. And they kind of, I wrote about this in my book. It's the weirdest one. They kind of don't know who to give it to him anyway because Portland was the best team. He played 58 games and one MVP that year.

And that's the least amount of games somebody's played. If you're talking about minutes per game, everybody's 33 and up, except for Janus during the COVID season when he was 30.4. And he played 1917 minutes that year. There's just no precedent for somebody playing. playing 29 minutes a game, playing about 67, 68 games and winning the MVP. And that's where we'd be with Wembe. He'd be around 65, 66, and he'd be 29 minutes a game on a minute's restriction for a lot of it. You could argue he's been the most impactful guy in the league for the last 10 weeks.

But SJ has either been one, two, two, one, two for the entire time. And he's on the best team. So unless San Antonio can pass him, I don't see the case. Yeah, I mean, it's a boring argument to make, and it feels like you're finding the right hair to split to swing an argument. But it does, it's like, it's 350 more minutes that SGA has played than Wembe. And Luca's like 500 something more minutes. Right. 350 minutes is like seven full NBA games.

Even if you think Wemby's per minute value or contribution is a tick higher than Shays, and it's actually hard to find any statistical evidence that is true. but let's just say you believe that. It's not 350 minutes, you know, difference worth of impact. Like the extra minutes plus impact is, that's a big, that's a big number. And leaving, even leaving a half for nine to ten minutes per half is you really have to have a good team at that point. If you're going to be a 60 win team and your best guys playing 30 minutes.

But it also speaks to how good he's been. Listen, this season was a massive win for him. It's incredible. These four guys are all incredible. Yeah. this is just him being in the conversation and managing to drop the SGA odds when SGA didn't get hurt and never stop being the number one seed

and is having one of the great guard seasons of all time. Watching him today, he gets 16 free throws today. They didn't replay a couple of the calls. I don't know if that's an edict from the league. Oh, stop. Stop. No, I kid O'KC fans. Most of them were the right call. But he gets to the line a lot.

And I think it is part of like winning back-to-back MVP's, I need to feel like the second season is at least mildly different than the first season. So he's been better, he's better, from an efficiency standpoint, yes.

I think he's been better at the end of the games. It feels like it's like surprising when he doesn't come through in the last five minutes. You just, like even the game today, it's like, oh, here he goes. He's going to start scoring.

But the big thing is he, there was like a, a character reinvention in a fun way where they became more villainy, which I think kind of weirdly helps the case because I was like to think of the MVP years like, what happened that year? What, like 30 years from now? What happened that year? Oh, what was that year? And this was like the, oh, it's the year SGA went back to back, got better than he was the first year, and got a little villainy. And that's what I remember from that year. So I'm good, I'm good with it. Is he really any different? Is it any of this any different though? Or is it, or is it,

just like if you're if you're saying they got villainy what what's different it's the same they didn't do anything different i think we changed they didn't change because they've been successful and now i think they've entered that zone that that sometimes players and teams can enter where you're like ah fuck these guys i will say not to not to be the defend the refs guy or defend the thunder guy or whatever um because i do think it's hilarious that mike brown has two technical fouls this year and they're both just losing his shit the line of coaches like these coaches need a support group now with him and Chris Finch and all the coaches who have just lost it because of the thunder. But there are even in a game where he shoots 16 free throws.

And there's a couple where you're like, oh, boy, did he kick his leg out? That looks a little wonky. There are a couple of drives. Like one, Mitchell Robinson kind of met him at the rim. And I kind of expected him to get a call and he didn't get a call. He's just in the paint a lot. And it's worth at least noting that even as you maybe are getting enraged at the whistle that he seems to be getting, there are these stray plays here.

And they were like, oh, he didn't get that call. And he fell over. Okay, it's interesting. He gets a good whistle. Let me, let me be clear. He gets a good whistle. It's definitely favorable. So Scal was on your podcast on Thursday, and I was saying it concurrently.

I hadn't heard yours talking about the too many guys theory with OKC. It's one of my favorite theories. I remember arguing about this with Darrell Mori. I don't know how many years ago. You noticed that again today, they put 11 guys. J-dub looked way better tonight. That was, I thought, the most. athletic he's looked since he came back.

How about the one where he streaked through the entire Knicks roster on a fast break? Yeah. I'm going to be interested to see how this shakes out with them. You know, like AJ Mitchell, who I think is really good. I'm a huge fan. I think he's had a good season.

The three point shots gone a little away from him, but he's just a really good score. I like when he has the ball. He had like four shots in 20 minutes tonight. Right. So they're going to have to figure out like how can we how can we kind of wet the beaks of these other dudes they also played 11 today which in the playoffs or not so i i assumed on thursday that isaiah joe he's probably losing minutes in mccane those would be the two guys you agree with that when they cut down to nine

those would be the two sufferers yeah even even today they're down to 10 and 11 minutes um the interesting one is is caruso because you've been asking like who's in the closing five for the thunder and i think tonight was yet another tell that Caruso is in the closing five. And so that, like, who is, some of that's going to be Hardinstein coming out. Some of it may be Dort coming out here and there. And it's like, it's like, Case and Wallace won't get as many reps in the closing five. But like, the two guys who have indisputably, maybe three if you want to include

Casein Wallace, like earned that level of, there's only five. But like the guys who qualify or like no brainer, these guys belong in a closing five. Or Wallace, Caruso and Mitchell have all elevated to that level. like I trust AJ Mitchell as a closing guy for the thunder. And so it's just like it's going to be matchups. It's going to be, you know, does this team have a little guard that we want as many guys as possible that can hunt him on,

when we have the ball? It's going to be really interesting. So, all right, let's play it out. They're, who they're going to play around to, Denver.

Maybe Denver. Okay. SGA, J-dub and Chet are all out there. And I have two spots left. I'm guessing it's, Caruso and then either Hartenstein or Wallace, depending on if I want to go bigger or smaller. And I don't think Dorts out there, which is a difference from last year.

You've just benched Dort. You haven't mentioned Mitchell. And a lot of it, the Denver matchup is a peculiar one because you have the, you know, Yokic, who's the second best, best, whatever, whatever you think he is. And obviously, sort of they famously used Caruso on him at the end of that series last year, but really only at the end of it. And other than that, the sort of textbook way you want to guard him

is with Hartenstein and then have Chet on Aaron Gordon roving around or chat on whoever roving around. And so if you're double big, that's one other perimeter guy that you got. It is the definition of a first world problem. Yeah. So these are first world problems and great problems. But there are also things you have to figure out

and extra decisions you have to make as, you know, you're down 2-1 in a game forward in somebody's building, where you're down three, two, and a game six, and you have to make sure you nail this. And that's just, it's last year I felt like it was a lot more cut and dry. Like when we were going on those finals games in Indiana, it was like, I know who's going to be out there for them.

I'm not positive this time. All right. All right. All right. Oh, okay. We're doing this right now. We're banging it up. I was not prepared for this, but I'm excited about it.

No, we're winging it. I didn't even make a list. We're going. Team you don't want to see in a playoff series the most. and it could be any playoff series. Round one, two, three, four, doesn't matter. Number one team you don't want to see. Isn't this just the best team's draft?

Isn't this the same thing? No, it's not. Okay. It's not. It's a scary playoff team's draft. Here's the caveat. I'm getting the completely healthy version of each team. So I'm giving you the hypothetical Sixers.

I'm giving you the Celtics with how good Tatum look today. I'm giving you, I'm giving you Charlotte with all their guys. Like, you name it. I'm giving you Detroit with Cade back. So we're moving, we're going hypothetical ceiling of each team. Who's the scariest playoff team to? Not the best, the scariest. What is scariest?

Scariest, like, I just, they're unpleasant to play against, or are we talking upset potential? I mean, the scariest is Oklahoma City still. It's a boring answer. All right, so that's your number one. I would have taken, I would have taken San Antonio first. Well, either one, that's fine. They're incredible.

M&B certainly is very scary. Here's why I think it's San Antonio from a ceiling potential standpoint. I'm worried they have one more level in them. I know what OKC's level is. We know what it is. I don't know what it is with San Antonio. I almost don't have a ceiling for the house for them. And it might be what we're seeing now.

But I keep thinking back to a couple times over history with these young teams that skyrocketed and also what's happened to them, you know, over the last two months. that 91 bulls analogy with them or the 86 rockets. They might just be ready now. And if they're getting the Wemby that we've seen the last 10 weeks, I think I'm the most scared of that because you put that in a playoff series with the energy of a playoff series

and just what Wembe could do psychologically combined with this OKC, just trying to figure out who they are as good as they are right now. I think I'd be the most scared. Like if I'm the seventh seed, if I'm Phoenix. Am I more bummed out that I'm playing San Antonio

or OKC? You're just happy to be there. What a great season for the Phoenix Suns are you? But I think you're probably, I think you want to, I don't know. It's a good question.

This is why this is a good question. But it's because it's the experience factor, right? Like, can't you see Dylan Brooks in the locker room being like, these guys never been here before? Like we can punk these guys and get to knock Wemby down every time. I'm going to get into Wemby watch.

I'm going to rattle him. He's going to throw an elbow at me. Like, can't you just see that conversation unfolding? I could. That's what you would talk yourself into of your point, I say. These guys haven't been here before. We can get to them.

We can, but we can knock down Wembe. We can beat him up. No layups for him. Hit him every time he's trying to dunk. You know, I mean, I think the Spurs can win the title. I am not super rattled by the, I mean, by the, all of NBA history. essentially suggesting that you cannot just go in and win the title unless you're a completely remade team like the 2008 Celtics or something like that.

But we did the deep dive on here a few weeks back. To me, the combination of like Fox and Wembe Niyama playing a full season, it's almost like a free agency coup, right? Wembe Nama leveling up like this, Fox playing a full season. I think they can win the title. I'm not worried about the lack of experience at all. But, you know, it does cut against NBA history. And yeah, they're absolutely terrifying to play against.

And I think these are the top two picks, no matter how you slice it. So you go 1A, 1B. Yeah, because, I mean, I'm one of the ones who said, I think you need to taste your own blood in a playoffs before you can win the title. So here's the thing. History says they're not going to win the title this year because it doesn't happen. History also said we weren't going to be able to have a 7 foot 7 guy who's this athletic and it's just a fucking alien.

By the way, for what, maybe you don't care. I'm not you. Maybe you, the aggregate you of basketball fans don't care. Like, the dude showed up in like the gold medal game of the Olympics in his home country against Team USA and like wanted every bit of that game and that matchup and wanted every bit of Germany and Serbia and everyone else that they could have faced in the in the Olympics. Those are pretty pressure-packed games. Yeah, one thing, this is what I've heard from people who have spent time around him.

I don't, he's, he's atypical from the previous generation. He doesn't want to be buddies with a lot of these guys. He's not like, oh, cool, I can't, I can't wait to get to know Luca Dantitch better. He wants to, like, destroy all these dudes. He's got a little bit of that Kobe MJ gene that I think could pay handy in the playoffs. Finals MVP, Fando allows you to bet on this. And the Spurs odds, like, four days ago were, like, plus $5.50 to win the title and six to one for Wembe to win finals MVP.

That's not dropped. He's plus five. 50 for finals MVP and Shea is plus 145 and that seems completely fair. You have the third pick and the scary draft. It's where it gets interesting. It does indeed get interesting. I bet we have the same team. I, despite the fact that I just watched the Utah Jazz score like 110 points in the

pain against them the other night, I'm still picking Denver as the third scary team because I just know what those two dudes can do together. You and I also, the same day on different podcasts, unknowingly talked about, is there now a second team all NBA case for Jamal Murray with some of these guys falling by the wayside? And him having a sensational season. And, yeah, their defense is getting shredded right now.

I think it's part of, you know, everyone working their way back to conditioning, back into chemistry, back, you know, Peyton Watson's just coming back. Aaron Gordon's been in the line up and on and on. Part like we're playing. some teams we don't respect at all. Like, we know we're going to just win the game. And part, you know, wake us up in the playoffs.

Now, I don't think there's like a top 10 defense hiding inside the number 22 or 23 rank defense or whatever they are in the NBA. But I think they're better than they've shown. They have won a championship recently and they have the best two-man game in the league. And so I'm still taking Denver three. Have you seen Gordon looks fine? Yeah, he looks mostly like Aaron Gordon. mostly.

I feel like he's driving the car right now and he's driving like he's in fourth gear, driving about like 55 in the Merritt Parkway, hasn't really swung over into the fast lane yet, just kind of cruising along. There's another gear for him. That's why I don't know what to do with their defense yet because we haven't seen him do the crazy Aaron Gordon stuff yet.

I also had them third. And I think the Celtics have to be fourth, especially if you saw what Jason Tatum did today, where he looked he looked the most like Jason Tatum that he's looked all season even kind of yelled at the crowd

like he's getting a little swagger back where I mean is there like a a New England transplant community in Charlotte it sounded like half I mean I know the Celtics are one of these teams the fans travel there's fans everywhere but that was extremely loud

in an arena that has been like a very good home court arena for Charlotte in every other game I've seen even like the next did not have that much of a presence in fan-wise. The Knicks had some. Philly had a bunch yesterday and the Celtics had the most. But this seems to be like a recurring theme with these road games with the Celtics.

I guess the bigger question is, do, does Boston just have the most transplants? Are they just, are they just Boston cells of people planted in every city? It feels like, because it happens in baseball, too. It's been happening with the Red Sox for around 20 years. The case for the Celtics, I mean, Tatum just came in today with no Jalen Brown or no Derek White and just basically ran the offense and looked like the old Tatum again. They have all of these bench guys that just seem to be interchangeably effective.

And they kind of have everything. You mentioned the bench guys. One of the notes I took during the game today was, I cannot believe that after losing all the guys the Celtics lost in the office, season that they were able to put out a credible lineup in a competitive game in the second half with Tatum at center. So all wings and guards on a night that Jalen Brown and Derek White did not play. And you're like, yeah, all these, like I trust all these guys.

Jordan Walsh, yeah, sure, you know, Shireman, you're good. It's just incredible how far all of these guys have come and makes you appreciate all the work that must have been going on behind the scenes with the player development coaches. because it's just like that would have been unthinkable before the season. And yet here they are and they blitz Charlotte. And I'll tell you the plays that if I were a Boston fan, the Tatum plays that most heartened me were the two pick and rolls where he crossed up Kalkbrenner in a deep drop and just went full blast right at him

and finished over and through him. Like that was those are high level athletic plays. And he may not be all the way back yet, but I just continue to just be agape at how. awesome he looks. I mean, the efficiency is starting to come now, too, but just eye test. I can't believe how good he looks. Everything is back except for blocks and free throw attempts from the stats from the last five years. The game today, he looked the furthest long. I was thinking about something. I would love with the Celtics have really good reporters. I would love for somebody to

ask Tatum this specifically. I think he's a better passer than he was. And I wonder when you sit and you watch basketball for, what was it, four and a half, five months, where you're just on the bench, like a fan, which he's, these guys have been playing games nonstop since they're six years old. You go to college, you play, you're in the pros, he's playing all the time. I'd love to know, like, just sitting on the bench for that long and just watching, like, did anything about basketball change for him? Because I feel like things slowed down for him a little, and I think he's seeing passing angles that I don't remember him seeing in the same way. And I thought he was a good passer.

Like he averaged six assists last year. It's not like he wasn't a good passer, but something's slightly different, and I wonder if it's that. Well, these guys just keep getting better in different ways, like Jalen Brown leveled up and the more experience you have,

the more you learn. But I do think there's probably something to not only watching it from that angle, but watching your teammates all thrive in elevated roles and say, okay, like that, you know, maybe I, this past, that maybe I wouldn't have thrown,

I can throw this time around. Don't you think, and I mean, this the complete opposite way from like engaging to your turn my turn concerns but don't you think these two games without jalen brown must be super super good for tatum just to like feel yeah that the full breadth of his game like all right like and one without derrick white too like i can i can do this and sort of get in even more of a rhythm yeah i mean look i think those guys are great i don't think there's any sort of alpha dog car key stuff those guys have been playing they want a

title together. But I'm sure deep down, there's three percent of Tatum, like, man, this team's running really good with Jalen Brown. I wonder what it would be like if I was just in his spot for two games. And guess what? They didn't miss a beat with him in the same spot. So I do think that's part of it. I also think what you said, we're talking about watching the teammates. I do wonder if that's part of it too, where you're just sitting on the bench watching these guys and you're noticing little things about them that you wouldn't notice if you're on the court with them in the same way, right? Like, oh, Sharman. and loves that spot or just little stuff.

But the way he's fit in so seamlessly, I think speaks to that. He stayed with the team. And I think some of these guys would have just gone and worked off on their own and, you know, kind of popped in and out. He was with the team the whole time. We had to take a break.

The scary playoff draft is about to get really fun because we have a San Antonio OKC, oh, OKC San Antonio in Denver, Boston. And now it's going to get serious, but we're going to take a break first. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast, is presented by Sam's Club. It is that time of the year when you just got to get in your car and go somewhere,

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And we were in London for three weeks. And we went to Paris for another week. And it was just awesome. Our kids were the right age to travel. That's my number one family vacation I've ever had. But we've had plenty of those trips so everyone's excited, but you hit the planning part. Suddenly it feels like there's too many movie pieces.

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I'm on the edge of my seat. This is one series only. San Antonio, OKC, Denver, Boston, off the board. Who do you have, Zach? Well, I'll tell you who I don't have, first of all, is the team that lost to the Raptors by 50-something boys today. They were low on my list, too. Through Orlando, Magic will not be my selection.

Holy smokes. That feels like, that's an uh-oh. That's a, I mean, we were already at a-oh stage. Like, the official uh-oh was when Palo had the, like, yeah, we don't make adjustments coming out a halftime thing. And Jamal Mosul was like, well, the only adjustment to Troy made was to play really hard. losing to the Raptors by 50-something points is an official like everyone's on notice. So I'm not taking Orlando.

Well, how about they've lost seven of their last eight. The one loss was to... The one win. Or the one win was to Sacramento. And there's a thing on NBA Reddit right now that it's called Low Light. This is the headline three hours ago. Arguably the worst stretch of basketball in NBA history. A compilation of all Orlando magic possessions during Toronto's 31 to nothing run.

This is a four-minute YouTube clip that you could easily find now. That's a cry for help. Now, I've been watching games all night and not engaging with, I haven't been on Twitter. I haven't been following it. Is that the biggest run? It's a record. Something to zero run in the history of the NBA?

Yes. They said as far back as they have ever measured play-by-play, but they don't know. It might have happened in like 1948. There's some missing years. Anyway, who's your fifth pick? I will go you know

against my better judgment I will go with the Knicks as the fifth pick in the draft I did not have them fifth I still respect this core another loss to the thunder tonight you know

got blitz by the hornets the other night in Charlotte so it's not it's not trending great we're back on like the cat seesaw where it's like, cat's invisible, cats being benched, cat has taken three shots,

and then cat has like 12 points in two minutes and everything's fine. And it just blows my mind how often we ride the same roller coaster with him. I still think there is, when they click, they can reach a pretty goddamn high level. And they are top six on both ends of the course.

And yet there are all these reasons where you're like, do I really trust them against the best, best, best teams? but I'm still taking the Nix, and it's worth noting they don't hate the Celtics matchup

that is looming in the second round of the playoffs. They shouldn't. That's the team they've had a lot of success against. They should not hate it.

A lot of NICs questions for me, but mainly why is this team always down 10 to 12 points against good teams and neither rallying back or they don't? But why is everything

so hard with the NICs? And they have a, the starting lineup has just been okay. And not, not as good as it should be given the high wattage people that are in it. I just don't know what the right move is.

They started, remember, they started the season with Hart coming off the bench. It immediately concluded, like, this guy's the heartbeat of our team. We can't function without him. The obvious one would be Bridges. I just don't think 70-something games into the season they have the wherewithal to do it.

And so, but yeah, and now they have Deuce McBrideback, so they have a deep roster that they've got to figure out now, too. assuming he didn't get hurt today. That's true. There was that, there's just door four dort collisions every game

where it's just like, okay, there's the door pile over there. Yeah, he's really the, he's carrying the torch from Bruce Bowen, the old Ron Artex. There's just certain guys.

These accidents seem to find them somehow. I had the Lakers in the five spot, so I'm taking them here. For one series, if I know smart and LeBron are healthy and I have to play Luca and I have to beat them four times in seven. And I'm also looking at some of the foul stuff that happens with them that we don't need to belabor.

You bring it up every time you can't resist. They're like five more free throw attempts a game, I think, for the last five years. And I just think they're really hard to play, especially at the end of these games. When it's a two point game with four minutes left, you just feel like they're going to win. And they could have two guys on the court that are just complete zeros offensively and it doesn't seem to matter for them. And I would not want to see them in a playoff series.

So I'm taking them fifth. Who do you have? So we're just, to be clear, we're just doing like scary teams. We're not doing like if the bracket, the bracket breaks like this, just blah,

just pure scariness. Then with apologies to Detroit and I guess Cleveland, I'm going Minnesota. And it's been a rocky month for Minnesota with Ant, out of the lineup in the last few games. Every time you think Randall has like rediscovered his verb a little bit,

even if it's like an 8 of 19 game, but he looks frisky and he's doing something. He has a 2 of 13, you know, lays an egg like he did the other night against Detroit. Now no Jada McDaniels that game, no ants, whatever, but I.O's been out the last couple games too.

That's a little problematic. I think he has a calf thing. That's a scary word, the C word calf. Yes, the new C word. That's a great point. Yeah, it's the C-word. It's called the NBA C-word. The NBA C-word.

I like it. Look, conference finals two years in a row, scoff added, if you wish. I-O's the perfect bench edition for them, and they have a guy. They have one guy who is just like, you talk about Luca being terrifying in a playoff series. Absolutely, Luca is terrifying. Anthony Edwards can reach his version of that terror alert level. So I'm sticking with that. I thought you were talking about Bones Highland.

Well, Bones, wave to the bench, baby. Bones, bones. Yeah, Bones... Listen, for a playoff series, these are the kind of guys that swing a playoff series when Bones Highland just says 30 in a game four. Absolutely.

We've seen it. I like the Minnesota pick. I thought I was inspired. And you've inspired me as well. See this game? You were dubious of. You were like, oh, what is this?

The best... Now you get it, which is why this is where we're going for the next pick. This is the eighth pick. Recency bias. There's no way it'll continue for an entire playoffs.

Oh, no. I don't care. Oh, no. I don't care. It's happening. It's happening. Philadelphia is scary. That was unbelievable yesterday.

And Bede was awesome in that game, including the winning block where they showed a replay and both of his feet were like a foot off the floor. Paul George had a 26 and 13. This is again Charlotte for the people who missed this. Maxi looked great. And I thought the team was really locked in, wanted the game. I thought they really intimidated. Charlotte. And some of the stuff they did defensively, I was, I was kind of shocked by. They were blitzing

those little handoff things and those little pick and pop plays they do. They're picking up LaMello at half court. They were really physical. I just thought, I thought it was like a playoff performance. Now granted, Charlotte Providencia coming. Charlotte played the next Thursday. The Celtics today was the sandwich game. I was impressed. So I don't think they're the one, they eight best teams, but from ceiling scariness standpoint, they're number eight for me. And we're talking one series, right?

Like, we're not talking like, can this team hold together for three playoff rounds or four playgrounds? Because I don't think... They're not going to. We know that. And your caveat at the beginning was you get the fully healthy version of this team. So, like, that's a version that has existed for maybe

72 hours in the last calendar year. But... Yes. Sure. I'm... It's now... is the time. It's just we've waited too long. Cleveland is my pick. The Cleveland

Cavaliers. Jared Allen got back healthy. This is extremely dynamic top four. Struces back. Tons of options for like the remainder of the minutes with all the guards that they have. It just feels like it's been an

season for the Cavs in a lot of different ways. They had to get off a Garland. They have James Hardin who I know you don't trust and nor should we in a game six or game seven. of a playoff series. Even Donovan Mitchell's in a slump right now. Jared Allen's coming off knee tendonitis. Evan Mowgli is just he's very good and he's not making the next leap to great that

we're all sort of waiting for. Struis has been out the whole year. I think this is a really good team. They're actually one of the more. I still don't really know what to make of them. I think it's been about 20 games with Hardin. Their offense has been sensational. Their defense has been crap.

But the big four guys have barely played any minutes together. And if there's one thing that I'm really. really curious to watch for these last six, seven, eight games, half of which are just tankathons around the league. It's that. I want to see those four guys, Mitchell, Hardin, Mowbly, Allen, how does that look together? Because I think there's a really high ceiling here that it feels like the NBA cognoscenti has just sort of moved away from them in this like Boston hoopla, which is very well deserved with Tatum going back and all the stuff going on out west and what Cade and is he going to come back healthy?

Cleveland's just kind of there to the side and I think we got to bring them back center stage a little bit. Sometimes this is not your year. Starting to wonder if that's the case. Well, we've said that about Denver too, right?

Who was the third pick in the draft? Denver obviously has a player that's better than anyone they have. I'll tell you this. If I was a Cavs fan, wouldn't be happy about the Quippers box scores lately. And their net rating with Garland on the floor as well has been...

None of what has happened with Daris Garland on the Quippers would make me happy if I was a Cavsman. Because you just did the rarely seen old guy for a guy about to hit his prime who had kind of had a rocky couple years, but there were real reasons for it with injuries. And you bailed because you thought you had a chance to win the title. Now you're probably going to be the fourth seed in the east. You just went 10th in our scary team's draft. And you gave up Garland. Which, as you noted, though, fourth, if that's indeed where they end up and they have a very easy schedule. It's a great. Fourth is a great spot. Maybe that's part of this is they're delighted to be fourth.

And you know who we haven't drafted yet in the scary team's draft. Well, you're not up yet. I know. Can it take them or not? No, I have Detroit. Okay. That's what I'm talking about. Oh, I thought you were talking about another team. Yeah, it's Detroit. And I said this to Goldsbury Thursday in a weird way, not having Cade for a couple weeks. and seeing this new level for Jenkins, maybe we'll help them in the playoffs.

But I still wonder, I don't think they, to have holes that I just worry about with some of the teams that they're going to have to play. Like when they play the Celtics and the Celtics can throw those two big wings at them, Tatum and Brown, and their wings are Tobias Harris and Robinson

and Herder and Javante Green. And Assar Thompson. Astar Thompson is going to be harassing somebody. Well, but he's probably going to have to guard one of the guards on the Celtics, right? like white or I don't see that's the part I don't know I just feel like there's a physicality with the two wings that they're going to have issues with us are Thompson now winning the thompson brothers uh who's having a better season contest now he's like minus 200 hard disagree

I think I listen to you I disagree I listen to you and Kirk on Amen Thompson um I is this I don't Thompson apologies no I just like in what in what I I don't know if if people's expectations for him just got out of control. You guys were talking like he's having a, like he's trending down. Kirk said he's trending the wrong way. Nobody guards him anymore. But no one guarded him ever. He's, he's, he's, I thought he was going to get better at it though.

He's 23 years old. He's averaging 18, eight rebounds, five assists a game after averaging 14, eight rebounds, four assists a game. Yes, he's shooting a little bit worse this year, 56% on two is down from six. 60% on twos. Free throws are, by the way, quietly, and this is the most encouraging part, he's shooting 78% from the line, which, which, but I, I just, to me, he's more or less kind of what I expected him to be this year.

I did not think that he was going to be like, oh, now suddenly it's he's going to be a point guard and he's going to be a 20.8 assist guy. That's not who he is. And in fact, look, they're just the weirdest team in the league. Which one would you rather have? Amen. over over usar yeah i mean they're both awesome i would love to have either one of them on my team i think he has a little bit more offensive creativity to him now he's been able to show that more than

assar has but um i am curious to see now that i mean the houston is the weirdest team they are unwatchable one night it very not been drafted yet interesting no and i don't think they're going to be next but i am interested to see more of this okay we've now committed to starting reed shepherd in part because Tar Easton hasn't made a shot in three months and he's left us no choice but to start Reed Shepherd. But now we've started Reed Shepherd. That puts Amin Thompson, I think, into a more natural role

for this stage of his career. And I'm interested to see just sort of how that looks. I took Detroit. So now here are the teams that, well, there's one, we'll go faster. I can't wait to see who's last. Who do you have next? I just took Detroit.

We're cutting off at the 10 teams in each conference that are in. that's, we're doing all 20. Well, we can go fast. I'm more interested to see who goes last. Of course you are. So we can't pick the hypothetical bucks with Janus. It's like, yeah, you're only 10 games out.

They're out. They're out. All right, you picked to Detroit. So that leaves. You have Charlotte, Atlanta, the Quippers of Orlando and Houston and Toronto are all left. Charlotte. No question. I think this is actually, I want to say it's too low for Charlotte, but I don't know who I would,

who I would remove, you know, it's a tough weekend for Charlotte. Interesting moment, actually, for Charlotte because it's been nothing but, you know, flowers and candy for three months. And three months is not a short amount of time. They've been like number one or number two in that rating for a long half the season now. And they have been looking at this stretch of their schedule as, okay, let's see what this looks like. And they started off with just raucous home win over the Knicks. That feels like, all right, we've arrived. Everyone's watching this game.

This is the kickoff of a brutal end of our schedule. and we just like ace the test. Philly comes in. That's a, you know, a win. I think Charlotte should expect to win that game based on how these teams have played this season. And Philly sneaks it out in the end and it's like, oh, they got some.

Charlotte blew the game too. Well, but it's like they're in the bonus with like seven minutes left. And I don't know. That game made me a little nervous because the crowd got nervous and their offense fell apart and everybody all of a sudden looked like

they'd never been in a big game before. and it made you go, oh, yeah, that's why we don't decide this stuff with net rating. You actually have to use your savvy in games like this. They didn't really have it yet. Today, back to back, fine. Boston was rested. They were in Charlotte last night, back to back off a tough game, but no Derek White, no Jalen Brown, and kind of got outclassed and a little frazzled offensively.

Now, I still think they're an extremely dynamic and very dangerous team. But this is, they play the Knicks, I think, on Tuesday or Wednesday. This is an interesting little moment for them, like at Madison Square Garden, coming off these two losses. You know, and real stuff at stake, like you want to get to eighth. At the very least, you want to get to eighth to get into the top half of the playing game. Like, I'm very interested to see how they respond. But the track record of the last three months is, holy crap.

So I'm very happily taking them here. They were before the game yesterday. They were number one in net rating for 40 games. 40 games is half the season. Every sort of net rating thing, they were number one, number two, number three. If you did 25 games, 20, 30,

the last two games were not great, though. And I do think they have a flaw other than the lack of experience. They don't have anyone on their team who can guard those Maxi Mitchell types. And you could say, oh, well, nobody has a guy like that. Well, then there's also Brunson.

You're going down the line, and it's just those guys kind of can do whatever they want against Charlotte. that's one thing. And then, you know, they looked a little small against Embed. A lot of teams do. But physically, I thought they had Grant Williams on him in the fourth quarter, kind of, because they didn't really have any other options, right? So that didn't bother me much. They're a year away, I think is my point. But I do think if I had to pick who could go further in the playoffs, Charlotte or Philly, I would take Charlotte. Who would I be more scared of for one series, Philly?

forgive me hypothetical healthy feelings. The hypothetical sixers. I get it. Embed is Embed just walks into 30 points. That 20-footer thing he does. It's just automatic. I mean, it's where it's like,

you're surprised he misses. Two, two, and then all of a sudden he's shooting and it just works every time. But it's a good point about Maxie because I was, you know, tracking who they assigned to Maxie and it was Cinnipple at the start of each half. And like, you know, we all love Carpool Khan, as Van calls him.

But that's a tough matchup for him. But it feels like it should be Brandon Miller, but Brandon Miller often needs to guard somebody bigger or is not quite ready for you. Then it's like, all right, Cian James, we got to play you more. That's probably bad for our offense. But can you come on Josh Green?

Like, it's a tough matchup. And then Embed bullying them, like you said, you know, that's how the brawl started. Jail and Duren was just like, oh, Musa Diabate, you're an awesome story. We love the antlers, guests on the podcast, all that. But like, how about I just beat the shit out of you? Because I'm like much, much bigger than you.

I'm 50 pounds every other. Yeah. Khan was, I think, well, Khan and Lamel together were 10 for 40 yesterday. They're not winning many games with that. No. But part of it was because Khan had to chase around Maxi for a whole bunch of it. See, I'm making excuses. All right, we'll go quickly.

I'll take Atlanta next. So let's go rapid fire here and see his last. Houston. I'll go Clippers. I thought about it. Now I'm, now it's, now it's getting grim.

Now it's grim for me. So I can't theoretically make Jimmy Butler healthy. That doesn't count. No, he's out. Okay. That would be bending the rules. Miami.

Okay. I'll take Toronto. So we're left. Oh, God. Okay. All right. You know what? I'm going to happily take the Warriors because I get,

I'm theoretically healthy step and healthy Porzingis. Let me see it. Let's go. I'll go to war with those guys. I'll go. I'll take them. I'll take Phoenix then. Oh,

I forgot about Phoenix. Well, you can have Phoenix. I'll take Golden State if you are. I'll take Golden State. Come on. Just even for just, even for just nostalgia, I'm taking Golden State.

So Portland's last. No, you forgot. There's two teams left. Who else? Someone else is so last. that you forgot that they're even in the draft. Who was it? Orlando.

Oh, yeah, I skipped over them. Yeah, they're last after what happened to that. I think that means they're last. I think they lose. Yeah, they lose. Orlando loses. If we do this draft on the day you give up a 31-0 run, you come last.

You lose. You lose. There's no, every year a coach gets fired with like two weeks to go. That's not going to happen in Orlando, is it? I don't think so. It's actually a conversation I've had with a few people and coaching agents around the league is we're a year removed from the Adam and

Taylor Jenkins double what the hell just happened and is that are we going to see any of that this year but that certainly feels like a scorching seat right now. A couple other quick things that so if we don't

get Curry and we're close to knowing whether we're going to get Curry or not. Kerr has basically said if he doesn't get a couple of ramp up games TM LeBron James if he did who is the Who started ramp up? Embed.

Embed is ramping up all the time. T.M.M.B. The 9-10 playing game in the West with no curry, do we even televise it? Should it just be terrestrial radio? What do we do with that game? Tape delay.

We go back to tape delay. Portland Golden State. Do we do maybe an AI broadcast, which is AI characters? I can't believe you're saying this about a Scoot Henderson team. Of all people, you should be, this is Scoot.

This is Scoots showing some, now every, every third game is. Don't do this to me. I can't. I can't. He's showing some signs. That's all I'm saying. But then there'll be every third game. It's like he had how many turnovers?

But I'm still, I wouldn't, you got to hold until the end. Miami today was so bad losing to Indiana, a team that was the first tanking team that actually had people making like Shawsham. Hank Warden, people tell the Indiana warden telling Jay Huff, he has to miss the two free throws kind of jokes. And Indiana just killed Miami today. India definitely doesn't want to win anymore ever. And Miami lost to them by 15.

And the Patriots beat Orlando last week, too. Miami seems happy to be the 10 seed. And I wonder if it's intentional because it's actually a better draft pick. And they probably feel like, what do we care? We'll get to the plan. We can beat any of these teams anyway. So let's just mess around. That's the only other explanation other than they're terrible.

So I'll give you those two choices. Like we don't really care where we are or we're just, we haven't been good this whole time. I think it's more closer to just we're a pretty mediocre team. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of the biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks.

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Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. March Badness stuff really quick. I asked you to look up. Oh, yeah. So the lottery, you're not a lottery guy, but I asked you to go look at some clips because we have two different things happening with the NBA draft. We have the top four, which everybody is now going to argue about,

all four guys are now out of the NCAA tournament. DeBanza, Darren Peterson, Cam Boosier, Caleb Wilson. I do have to say I am going to miss dad Carlos Boozer dropping F bombs in the stands. That was a good... Tawn in the St. John's crowd, yeah. That was a good time.

So we have those four, and that's going to be a great argument in itself of just who could, and a lot of it's going to turn in on who gets the top four picks, all that stuff. 5, 6, 7 has now turned into its own awesome argument, and it's Burry's from Arizona, who I absolutely love, and I think is my favorite, I don't think he's going to be the best part in this draft, but I think he's my favorite. Wogler on Illinois, who's been just incredible

and has dragged them to the final four, and A-Cuff on Arkansas. and they're going to go 5, 6, 7 in some order, and some of it's going to depend on who has those picks because if you have a point guard, maybe you take Burrys. But I just ask you to look at their YouTube clips really quickly and give me your Malcolm Godwell blink test

of what you saw. So let's do Burries first. What did you say? I really enjoy just giving myself just enough knowledge to be dangerous, to have strong opinions based on based on nothing. Burries, I, I may have liked the best of the three.

Super physical, like, plays bigger than his height and his size, plays defense. Jumper looked like the release was a little slow at times, but when he needed to speed it up, he sped it up from what I saw. Active off the ball, like all these guys, you need to be a good off ball player, too. And I think A-Cuff is, too. Like, you need to learn how to play off the ball as a secondary ball handler. And there's, like, a lot of back cuts and coming off pin downs in the burries in the tape, but I, he plays, I think he was listed as 6-4, Acuff is listed to 6-3.

He plays bigger than 6-4, and just the physicality was kind of interesting to me. He's definitely a little Bookerish when you, I don't, like, he was, he won the state title in California last year and was an awesome offensive player in high school. Arizona has a million guys, so they don't need the offense same way. So there's some Steph Castle potential with him where there's more there. we're just not seeing it because he's trying to win a title. The defense rebounding hustle stuff, competitive stuff,

I just have zero doubts. Give me all the stock. I'll take all of it. And I think when you see a team, I think he could potentially go four if it was a team that didn't need a forward and was like, you know what we really need is a two guard

because he's like perfect two guard. So we're aligned. He's my favorite. I have a specific thing for Wogler, but what did you think when you say? saw him. Weird, weird player. And actually watched a little bit of their elite eight game, too.

Because their team, Croatia, their team Yugoslavia. Like they've just, it's like a whole Yugoslavian team that is, is migrated there. He's, he's a very weird player. He moves, and I don't mean that in a bad way. He just has weird movement patterns, like a lot of stepbacks, a lot of spin moves. He's obviously the tallest of the three, and he leverages that for all it's worth. I think he's only hit like 47, 48% on twos, which is a little discouraging, but the guy can really shoot and he can pass.

He's just, he's the weirdest of the three and the one that I was like, I need to actually watch even more on this guy because he's a little, he's a little strange. But clearly there's something there. To me, there's a lot of AJ Mitchell, but the ceiling would be higher. But same kind of like very unconventional, weird, herky jerky game. Like Brunson, they obviously have different body. but he just kind of knows how to play basketball and how to get shots that he wants to get

and doesn't really seem to care how many tall guys are around him, what the angles are. There's a competitiveness with him that I think the tournament sometimes we can overreact to, but I think it matters that he was the best guy in this team that was an 11 seed that dragged him there. I also like that he's an overachiever.

He wasn't a top 100 recruit. He wasn't like in the ESPN top 100. So he's been like a late bloomer. And I like that those guys have the chip on their shoulder. I have a cuff ahead of him, but I think it's, I think it's 50-50. I'd like to watch more because I did find myself thinking as I watched 11 minutes on YouTube, to be clear. Yeah, it's with the blink test, scouting. I did find myself thinking, how does this translate to a league where everybody's a little taller than the guys that he's facing now?

Right. And his height is a little bit less of a superpower at the guard spot. Well, that's what I think about with Camboozer, because I watched a lot of Duke the last five weeks. His big go-to move is he basically, he bulls you and he does these little spin moves and ends up with like the same either jump hook or a little turnaround. And his goal is always to get as close to the basket as possible, which you can do in high school and you can even do in college.

And I don't know if you can do it in the pros in the same way as comfortably. and what he never really seemed to shoot was that little 12 to 13 footer that Co-A-Pete on Arizona has. I think Co-A-Pete is basically kind of boozer-ish. I'm sure somebody at some point will roll out of take of Co-A-Pete's

actually going to be better than Cam Booser and here are the five reasons why. But he has this really nice foul line jumper that he's always setting up. And Boosers always, and that's the kind of stuff you just don't know until you get to the NBA and all of a sudden,

you know, Jaron Duren's waiting for you. I will say... Jalen Dern. I don't know why I called him Jaron Dern. I will say... What do you have for Aikov, by the way? Well, hold on. I want to talk about Kambwezer for a second. I'm just looking at the box score from... So, again...

Put some stats every game. I want to watch... I want to sit down and watch more because I have very limited information. You're going to have to this year, because this is like a once-in-a-decade top nine. So this is the only Camboozer experience I have was Friday night, fifth grade play at my daughter's elementary school. We have some people over afterwards. Everyone wants to have the Duke game, Duke St. John's.

Obviously, we're in St. John's country. St. John's is America's team. Anyone playing Duke is America's team. St. John's is winning. We throw it on. So it's on in the background. We're talking. They're social.

I can't say I'm watching it carefully. But when I looked up, I was like, okay. I'm a little underwhelmed. I was excited for my first, like, a big game look at Camboozer, and he put up numbers, and it was, like, good. But I expected him to pop a little bit more than he did in that game. That's not what he does. He's a basketball player, though, right?

He's just like a good basketball player, right? He's just like a good basketball player. Really smart. He's in the right spots. He's cool as a cucumber. And he gets his stats. But the Caleb Wilson, you'll somebody will cut an 11 minute Caleb Wilson tape, and you're going to be like, is this guy Janus?

Like, that's the difference between those two. A-cuff. So, oh, go A-Cuff really quick. Smooth as silk. Like, just so smooth. If he were two or three inches taller, would he be in the conversation, would he be the number one picking the draft?

Because he's just the change of pace, the hesitation, the variety of finishes, the control, the mid-range game, the passing vision, like so smooth. Not like a blow away north-south athlete,

But kind of like I was going to kind of Shay like in the way that he just knows how to get a little bit of separation one way or another, not as blow away as an athlete of shade, not as big as Shea, but just so smooth, so under control. I can see why everybody loves him so much. A lot of Kyrie. It's a little Chris Paul in there, like game manager general stuff. It's just his ball. His teammates got a rebound.

They just, it's one of those. We'll see with the size. People are worried about the defense with him and like, I don't know, how many point cards have we had that were awesome where they weren't good defensively and it was fine. I'm not as worried about the defense as other stuff. Okay. I want to talk about expansion really quick because I have a bunch of intel. Layout.

I'm laying out. Well, I'm interested in your take on some of this stuff. I think this is a fascinating sports story because of how the league has handled this with the reality of it is versus what they presented to the fans and to the media. They've made it seem, like, what's your take as you've read all this stuff? What is your take on will expansion happen, all that? Like, just knowing nothing or knowing what you've read and that's it. I mean, all right, if I excised all the private conversations of had, I would say, like, it seems like it's on the path to happening that Adam Soper has basically announced, like barring some unforeseen

circumstances we're having a Vegas team and a Seattle team. Right. So if you live in Seattle, and you read and consumed all the stuff the last week or so, you're like, this is amazing. We're getting the Sonics back. Here we go. That's not what's happening. And I think it's really weird how the league is handling this because there's two things going on. One is they don't have the votes. And two, this is a two-part process where part one is you get the 30 owners together and they have to vote, need 23 votes to proceed. And basically, Silver is going, I want to see what we can get for these two teams. We've decided it's going to be Seattle and Vegas. We haven't decided if we're expanding yet, but let's see what kind of price we can get for each of

those. And then I'll bring that back to you and we can vote on it. So the analogy would be you live on a block and two people sold their houses on your board. lock and you're going, huh, those went a little higher than I thought. Should we sell our house? And your family goes, we don't want to move. What do we want to sell our house for? It's like, well, I'm just going to ask a realtor, like what they think we could get. And the realtor goes, all right, I'll, I'll ask around and see what it's worth. It's basically what Silver's doing. That's not how it was presented. And what's really interesting, not only do they not have the votes,

but I think it got a little testy in the Board of Governors when they were all together last week. With some people are like, why are we doing this? I'm never voting for this. This is stupid. We're not doing this.

And I think what's happening, really, if you want to dig deeper, is there's this new generation of owners, a little like what we had 20 years ago with Cuban and Whit Grossbeck, like the younger guys that were coming in, and they just kind of thought about the league differently. I think that's happening again.

So you have Chisholm who just got the Celtics. You have Ryan Smith who just got Utah. You have Fertita in Houston who's been there for a while, but I still think he's closer to the newer generation, the old one. You have the Charlotte guys that just got the team. You have Ishby and Phoenix, and you have A Rod and Lorry in Minnesota.

All of those guys intend on owning their teams for a while, right? They bought in, they want to win a title, they want to compete. If you're doing this, you're bringing two more franchise into the league. Now I have a 1 in 32 chance of winning the title, not 1 in 30, right? So now I just have two more people I have to compete against. That's one thing. I'm giving up 232nd of my media share. I go from 130th to 132nd. And I don't really see the point of why I'm doing that. These guys are all rich for a reason. Why would I do this? Seems to be the prevailing theme. Now I'm talking about Dolan, who's been against this from the

get-go. How about the guy who just bought Portland, Dundon, right? Why would he want a Seattle expansion team two hours away? He's not voting for this. How about rich competitive dudes? Like Balmer, what does Balmer want more teams in the league for? What does he care about $500 million? You know, oh, if we sell for $8 billion each, everyone gets a check for $500 million. I have more on that in a second, too. What does he care? He just wants to win the title. You're making his odds worse. You're taking his media money way. And then there's wildcard. Like Joe Si's another one. He doesn't need money. Walter just bought the Lakers. I have no idea what Vivek's doing ever. And Dumana and Dallas, who knows. So I just listed that's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,

11, 12, 13 owners that I've not either I know they're against it or they're, or, you know, probably not. So that's one thing. The other thing is in the hypothetical fairytale world where they could get $8 billion a team. Do you know how fucking hard that is to get $8 billion? We'd have to write an $8 billion check for a team. And people point to the Lakers went for $10 billion. They didn't really go for $10 billion. It was like $4.7 because the guy already owned a big chunk of the team. He definitely got outside investor money to help him out with it. I don't know if he had to pay for it all at once. Same thing for Chisham. He was able to get the Mattow family from India to throw in a billion dollars. They inherited all this debt. Like he

basically scraped it together. Minnesota, it took them four years just to pay, what, 1.7 billion, something like that. Utah paid 1.4. I don't think they have any chance of getting $8 billion. The more people I talk to and the more people I look at it. And I think Adam is floating it out. Like, that's the number. Who's paying that? And why would you pay $8 billion for a team in Seattle? So, A, I don't think they have the money. I don't think they have the money lined up. I don't think there are groups out there. B, I don't think the owners are going to necessarily vote for it, even if they do get $8 billion a team. And if it's like five to six, they're definitely not voting for it. And I don't really understand the point of any of this. Why not just be transparent

and say, hey, we're just curious to see what we get for these expansion teams. This doesn't mean we're going to have expansion. Instead, you've completely led this poor Seattle people on who now think they're getting a team. And I don't know if that's true. So that's my, That's my rent. I think that's all fair. And certainly $8 to $10 billion, you have a very narrow universe of potential buyers, assuming you don't, I mean, you don't want a 20-person group coming in because that's proven problematic in other places having so many minority owners.

It's a very small universe of people. And yeah, I mean, Adam, at one point in the press conference last week was careful to say, you know, we didn't approve expansion today. We approved the exploration of expansion. But it does, I mean, they've, they, they, 28, 29 kind of came out. I don't remember the exact origin of like, who said that first and when that came out. But it certainly was not like rebutted by the league office when 28, 29 is like these teams starting came out. And like, that's aggressive.

I mean, it's 2006 right now. Like, there's a lot to do to get a team up and. running and you raise a lot. Like I had, I'd like to go back and listen to it because when I had Ishby on my show a couple months ago at your house, actually, I recorded it at your house. Yeah. I asked him about this. And he was, he, he was a little non, let's say, I basically asked him, do you think

they have the votes? Like, he was a pretty noncommittal about it. And I just sort of put that in the back of my mind. They don't have the votes. I'm just telling you they don't. Now, whether they can swing a couple people, maybe. Like, even I noticed Houston, did you follow them getting the WMBA team for 300 million? Yeah.

Is that a scratch your back? Now you scratch mine with a vote kind of situation? Because that was really weird that Houston, who already lost the WMBA team, just took a team from Connecticut that, why wouldn't that go to the Celtics when the Celtics wanted it or another city? Like, I thought that was weird. I think all this is really weird. and I don't understand why I was presented the way it was. And when my shit detector started going off, it was a Monday morning news leak,

which as we know, Monday morning is always when you put a story out trying to set the tone for the week. And they put it out in a way that made me think, this almost seems like they're testing this out to see what the reaction is. Like they're either trying to convince the fans,

this is a good idea, or they're trying to convince the votes that they don't have that this is a good idea. I do not think they have the votes. Let's flip it around. Why is it a good idea? Beyond like it would feel good to have the Sonics back, would feel like writing it wrong and Vegas is Vegas.

Like what is the, if financially it's murky enough that some owners will vote no based on the money, right? Like based on the expansion fee, short-term boost versus the long-term reduction in our media right share. If financially it's murky enough that someone will know based on that version, based on that data point alone, what is the reason for this? Because I don't, I do agree with you, I don't think anyone is like clamoring for more teams. I don't, I'm not necessarily worried about talent dilution. I think you can support 32 pretty healthy NBA teams on a talent level. But I also like, no one is sitting there being, well, we just have an overabundance of talent.

Like we could, we need like six more teams. No one is saying this. No. I mean, the players union, it's 30, 30 more jobs for them, right? So they're pro. I can only think of a couple things. One is you're establishing a value of a franchise, right? The Celtics sale established a number and then the Lakers sale established an even bigger number. The Celtics number is legitimate. The Lakers number is flawed because if you're trying to buy a percentage of a team that gives you the majority, you're going to overpay for that majority to get the final result. So you say it's 10, but I don't know. If you're in a vacuum, nobody's paying 10 billion

for the Lakers are just cutting a check and handing it to somebody. They already had a piece of it. So to me, it seems like they're trying to establish the number that then becomes the number. Well, this is what we got for our expansion team. This is what our franchises are worth. If the goal is we have to write a wrong in Seattle,

First of all, you never should have took the team from Seattle in the first place. And I have two Save Our Sonics meal bags from 2008 that I did at the time. It was criminal when it happened. I still can't believe it happened. They let it happen and they didn't rectify it for almost 20 years. You can't then say, well, we're going to add two more teams to fix the wrong we did in Seattle, especially when you have a couple teams that you have to seriously think about, are they in the right markets, right?

first of all, if you're going to move into Seattle, why wouldn't the Portland guy who doesn't even have an arena yet have the option to potentially move into Seattle? Why wouldn't some of the other franchises potentially have the option to move there? And that's like, conspiracy bill wonders, like, do you play this expansion thing down the road because ultimately you know it's not going to work

and now you're going to relocate a franchise into Seattle? And you want to at least cover your tracks and be like, well, we tried, we tried to do expansion. We couldn't get it passed. So we want to fix this. Seattle and now you move a team. Is there not a case for Portland wanting Seattle because A, it's a great natural built-in rivalry that has a history to it already. And B, we're not all alone on an island in the Pacific Northwest. We actually have one short flight road trip per,

you know, that we do every year a couple times. Maybe. I don't know. I think I would feel better just being the only NBA team in the Pacific Northwest. But I think for the league, it's, I mean, obviously it would be better have a team in Portland teams in Portland and Seattle. And for Minnesota, don't you, isn't there a part of you

that's like, well, are we the one that gets to move to the east? Like, does that, does that factor in it all for you? I mean,

I don't know how they decided. I know they have, they have all these committees, right? They have expansion committee. They have TV committee. They have all these different things. So the expansion committee

obviously decided Seattle and then Vegas are the two best options. I still don't know how they ended up with Vegas. I think there's some other options. I've talked about this on the pod before, but it's interesting.

Apparently in the Board of Governors meeting, one of the loudest guys in the room against this with Chisholm, the guy that just bought the Celtics because he just got into the league. He's not in any of the committees. And I think there was a few people in that room. And it's more than just the owners. Everybody brings like there are one or two people with them.

There are a few people in the room. Like, I don't get it. Why are we doing this? I'm not voting for this. and I think it was a little more contentious than Adam thought it was going to be, which then makes sense why they leaked that story on the Monday morning to try to set the template for it.

So listen, all I'm saying is you better know you're going to have a team in Seattle in the next three years because to extend this and make it seem like it's going to happen and then pull the rug out from under them again would be pretty fucked up. That we can agree on. I mean, you even have the Seattle media

at this thing to ask Adam I mean, now there's Vegas media there too, but Vegas is like already an NBA city in a lot of ways because of Summer League and all that stuff. But like, yeah, you can't do that to Seattle again. We'll see what happens. And there's also, there's also the like, I think part of the discontent was also just like we're doing. There's just a lot of stuff going on at the same time. We have the tanking stuff. We have the Clipper stuff.

We have the NBA Europe stuff. We have like what like why like this is a lot. Why are we adding in this too? There's a lot that we already have to resolve. WMBA. Yeah, and that's, I said this a week or two weeks ago, but like, to me, you can't add two more teams until you fully figure out the tanking rules. And they, they tweeted out three terrible solutions on Friday, which I didn't like any of them, did you? I thought they were fine.

I don't understand. I don't think they're that difficult to understand. Like, that was the, some of the outcry was like, these are too complicated. They're not really that complicated. They're just basically like, we're going to flatten the odds and let some of the, the play-in teams in. I don't, it just, it really depends. What, what you, what do you want to happen?

I don't want a situation where San Antonio can go one, two, and four three straight years again. And I'm not taking anything away from what happened with them, but I just don't think that's the right way to do it. I don't want a situation like Philly being able to do the process. Well, one of them had the built in, had, had some built-in safeguard, at least one of the proposals that's some built-in safeguards where you can't pick in the top whatever.

I think. And then there was one that had two years worth of record was going to be the basis of where you picked. The league has real issues now. Like even you look at a team, you know, because then on top of it, you have the player empowerment piece coming into this too, right?

And you have, I don't know, like, who's a team that lost somebody in the last five years because the guy just didn't, Mitchell. So Mitchell just decides, I don't want to be in Utah anymore.

What are you going to do if you're Utah? you're going to keep him. He's under contract for three more years, but he doesn't want to play there anymore. He wants to go somewhere else. What do we do? Anthony Davis. Well, Darren Fox.

It goes on and on. Right. So if you're Utah, you made a really good Mitchell trade. You haven't had any luck with the lottery. You're now, you've done pretty well in your picks, but you also didn't win the lottery.

And then you see a team like San Antonio goes, one, two, four. I don't know. I just don't think any of this is a good system. I don't think if, I think if, like if Indiana wins the lottery this year, they shouldn't then be able to win the lottery a year from now. And that's, I don't know why they haven't done little tweaks like that.

Like if you're in the top three, you don't get to go back. These seem like pretty simple. I don't mind flattening the odds though. If they wanted to do like the odds for the worst seven teams are flattened, then it drops down to the next seven and then the four play in, I'd be fun. When Westcham first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion,

Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to WestJetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Uh, where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now. Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be.

This winter, stay warm. the banner to order your groceries online at walla.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. I'm at that. All right, last thing before we go, deep dive. I asked you this, is this the weirdest NBA season we've ever had? Seems like a pretty bold statement. It's a big question, first of all. Because I was trying to think, what's been weirder than everything we've seen now for five, five months. And every week there's another story.

We just talked about this expansion story that came out of nowhere. I'm going to list some of the things that have happened this year. St. Antonio went from 34 wins to a title favorite. Wemby arguably became the face of the league. We argued about face of the league last summer for two months. And I think Wembe has now become the guy that is the hottest ticket out of the 30 teams. Is that fair? Is there a hotter ticket than Wembe coming in town?

He's must see. He's the face of the league. Bam had an 83 point game. That happened. The Clippers had an aspiration scandal, started out 6 and 19, traded James Hardin and they're now making a playoff push. And the scandal has not been resolved. Also ignominiously waived Chris Paul, who then retired.

From basketball. And waived Chris Paul during his farewell season. Charlotte had the best net rating for 40 games after going 4 and 14. Kevin Durant had a burner scandal at the All-Star game, and the team has not been the same sense, and we've never found out whether the scandal happened or not, although I think we have our ideas. Jason Tatum blew out his Achilles in May.

Their overrunner was 42 wins. They've now already won 50, and he's back, and he had 32 points today, and that all happened in 10 months. The Lakers looked like an absolute mess, and are now contenders, who just went fifth in our scary team draft. Phoenix,

Stephen A. Smith called Ishby are the worst owner in the league a year ago. Now they're going to be in the playoffs. OKC became villains. We have 10 tanking teams that made Adam Silver snap. The Luca trade officially became the worst trade ever. The Wizards have Trey Young and Anthony Davis. I was going to say, when is that coming up? We have a hardcore expansion plan out of nowhere.

Everyone turned on inside the NBA, a show that we all loved than considered family and we might have 10 East teams that have 45 plus wins so I just listed 5, 15, 17

thanks and I don't know what I left out I mean Well keep going What else said The Pistons are the one seed The entire Janus

saga from start to finish Janus Is that a saga Can we come up with another word? Zion plays now Every game that that that that that's a weird one. Yeah, you're right.

New Orleans being the worst team in the league and they're going to give Atlanta the number one pick and now I think they're like the 10th team in the league, the last 20 games. John Morant, last man standing in Memphis, except everyone already forgot he's even on the team. Like when they issued the medical update for him,

like elbow, the elbow, he's just going to be out for the season. These teams are giving up with these press releases. I have to expect them to just like accidentally send one that's just like, John Morant injury to come in parentheses will be out for the season. And they accidentally send it. Did you see that Brian Keefe, the transcript of his press conference when the reporters were asking him why he stopped playing guys?

And he was just like, well, he'd reached his cap for minutes. These are like healthy 22-year-old guys who just want to play basketball. The jazz are like, Kyle Filipowski, you're too good. Just the first two quarters are for you. Sveh Mahailuk, you're so good. You can only ever play when we're already down by 30 points. Then what's like, here comes Svi off the bench. It's just absolutely laughable what's going on.

There's probably more that I'm just even forgetting. You mentioned James Harden, the Hornets. How about the Bulls just? Oh, yeah, the James Hardin trade. We forgot about that. The Bulls just, sure, they exist. I don't know. How is a team this story, this, now this.

irrelevant. The Nets took five first round picks. None of them will make an all-rooky team. That feels problematic. Is that true? I mean, yeah, I guess that is true. Joman, I mean, I think of Joman had been healthy the whole season, he would do it. He'd have to have a shop. I guess we could have thrown in

Jalen Brown being a viable MVP candidate. Sure. That was like 350 one odds. One of the things I was looking at was the over-unders before the year and how many teams outperformed or under-performed or over-under by like 10 or more wins or losses.

And it was more than you'd think. Donovan Klingen looks more and more like Gunther every day. That's a good one. Should he just start dressing like Gunther? He'd just come out like that for games? What's the Kings one? There's got to be a King's. Well, the Kings were the Kings getting mad at you because you called them a train wreck before

the season. I called them five times worse. I called them the Hindenberg. And they took that personally. And guess what? It was even worse. Scotty Pippin doing that was that a real thing or was that AI?

Did you see the Scotty Pippin, Mr. Pib? The soda. Yeah, voice of Van Lathan and that. That's right. That's right. Just throw that on the list. He's still mad about the last dance five years later. So, all right.

So we've established this was a super weird season. We're not even probably done. I went back over history because I'm weird. And I tried to figure out there have been a weirder season. And there were three candidates. And I'll just go through them quickly. You'll remember them pretty fast. 1995, which had the goofy three-point line.

It had Michael Jordan returning from baseball to just start playing basketball again in mid-March out of nowhere. Houston won the title as a road team in every series. It never had home court advantage in one series won the title. Nick Anderson missed four free throws in a row. We had the Nick Anderson game and his career was ever the same. We had Dave and Robinson win the MVP. And Hakeem had vengeance on him in the playoffs and destroyed him.

We had Dennis Rodman taking his shoes off during the Spurs series. We had, and completely having a breakdown. We had the Pat Riley Knicks, Miami thing. Wasn't that the year it fell apart? 95? I think so. I think it might be the next. No, it's 95.

I can't remember. And that was also the Patrick Ewing finger roll missed. And then we had eight points, nine seconds is that same series. and we had Indy Orlando Eastern Conference Finals, which was the best series ever that nobody's ever talked about again. You could watch five games from that series and you'd be wildly entertained. They wouldn't even show it in hardwood classes. The round before when the Magic beat the Bulls is what the all-time,

like what's happening image of the magic carrying Horace Grant? Like a high school kid who just made the game-winning field goal in the homecoming game off carrying them off the court. That's another thing about 95. Michael Jordan came up short in a playoff series. But it wasn't really Michael Jordan, and he got his vengeance like that year. Anyway, that's one candidate.

And he wore number 45. Yeah, you wore the wrong number. 2004 is our next candidate. Pistons win the title. They beat the Lakers. The Kobe trial happened that year, which was just surreal and bizarre and kind of terrible.

We had that crazy Pistons Pacer series where it would be like three minutes left in the fourth quarter. Indiana winning 59 to 58. Remember? The scores were like you couldn't even believe this was basketball. That series singlyhandedly led to some of the rule changes that have now kept happening for 20 years. We had Minnesota having their one good year ever with KG and all that stuff.

You had your guy, Paige Astyakovich. Stokovic? There you go. The second one. It's always itch. It's always itch. his itch fourth MVP that year. His son is playing pretty well for the Illinois fighting Balkans.

We had Dirk and Nash flaming out. We had the jailblazers officially falling apart, trading Rashid Wallace, who played one game for Atlanta and got traded again in the Pistons. We had LeBron's first year. We had the crazy 0.4 Derek Fisher shot. Oh, my God. How many teams were over 99 points a game that year?

99. Two. Two. and we had the O-4 Olympics collapse with our backcourt of Stefan Marbury and Steve Francis, among the many things in O-4. So that, I would say that was a pretty weird year. That's a good word. Oh, and then we had Shaq getting traded right after the year to Miami.

All right, here's our winner, 1978, which featured the Kermit Washington Punch of Rudy Tom Jonovic, probably the worst moment of the last 50 years. I just, before you, I wish Fanduel would have offered me odds on who would have won this? Which year Bill would pick, because I would have gone heavy on 97, 77, 78. I just, it's a great one. Kareem punched Kent Benson and broke his hand amidst 20 games.

Bill Walton got injured when the Blazers were, I think, 55 and 10 or something and really never came back. We had the Sonics go 5 and 17, fire their coach, and make game seven in the NBA finals in the same year with Lenny Wilkins. They lost to a 44-win bullets team. We had a 44 and 38

Bullets team win the title. This was two years after the ABA merger. We had the Braves trying to move and they finally did. We had the Celtics falling apart officially. We had the weirdest MVP vote ever that nobody still knows who should have won the MVP. We had Doc kind of choke in a playoff series,

Doc Julius Irving against Washington. And the fans kind of turned on, it was like, hey, Doc, I thought you were going to be better than this. That happened. And we only had 350 win teams, even though it was an 82 game season. only one team won more than 55 games. It's a great, it's a great random year.

I still think that might be the weirdest, but this one's getting close. The BAM 83 point game, I think removed the ceiling for this season. I don't know. So what's your take? Out of those four, what was the one that jumped out to you? 95 is a pretty fun year. I might be partial to that one because that's, I'm 17 in that year. And so it's just right in the heart of you're becoming the sports fan that you're going to be.

I'm right in Nix country. So I'm living the mid-90s Nix thing. All my friends are going crazy about that. That was the Jordan thing. I mean, people who were not alive and or engaged in sports then just don't have any idea how wild it was. That one morning we woke up at six in the morning and the radio on the way to come. on the way to practice before school was like,

Michael Jordan's retiring from basketball. It was the craziest thing that it ever happened. And then he played baseball and then he came back and he had a double nickel and had the pass to Bill Weddington and all that stuff.

When you talked about knowing hearing the news that he retired, that was one thing. Hearing the news that he was coming back, I still think might be the single most exciting news announcement because we didn't have hoops hype back then.

We didn't have like social media and rumors. and whatever. It was just all of a sudden there were rumors he was practicing with them and everybody, he was kind of word of mouth.

Maybe you had a sports radio station you're a hometown. Maybe you knew a guy who knew a guy. It was like, Jordan supposedly he practiced with the boy. And then all of a sudden he was back and we were like, this is amazing.

Michael Jordan is back. I'd given up on this. And that became the most fun two months out of nowhere in this weird season. It was great. So you say 95. I'm just a little, I'm a little bit. By the way, I'm, you know what I'm just thrilled that you included in your 1995

description? The three seasons they move the three point line in are like a wild three seasons. If you go on basketball reference and search like the best three point seasons of all time percentage wise, a bundle of them from like Steve Kerr and Glenn Rice are in those three years. And people like don't, people just list like, oh, Steve Kerr had the greatest single season ever. Glenn Rice had the great. And they don't even mention that the three point line was like two feet closer for his three year.

It was like a massive thing. Whatever it was, I can't remember exactly how much closer it was. Steve Kerr shot 52.4% from three. And that left shrimp was right behind him at 51.4. It's such a weird thing that they just did this for three years and we're like, no, not good. Just move it back. I don't even really remember the reasons that I don't know whether they thought the paint was getting too clogged or something. And it didn't make sense as it was happening.

And it was kind of awful. But you really see in that 95, that Magic Pacers series, you really feel the three point line in that game. Because for Reggie Miller, it was 21 footers. You know, so you have to chase them everywhere. All right. So we think, I'm going to go with 78. I think I gotta be honest I think

I think 26 is really close we're like two more weird things away now but we what if the playoffs is all chalk what if we get at the end of this and it's like Oklahoma City and San Antonio and just like crazy seven game bloodbath

in the Western Conference finals and then the winner beats the Celtics or something in the finals and it just ends up being chalky in the playoffs does that take away from the weirdness factor at all all right I'm going to flip it back on you

you've watched this whole season. Is there any chance the playoffs are going to be normal? No, no. I think there's no chance. There's no chance we're getting a normal playoffs. Even if we end up at a normal destination, the journey is going to be like we drove off the road

and the car went into the pond like in the office when the GPS just directs Michael Scott into the lake. It's like it's going to be crazy. Even like these plans like, Charlotte just not making the playoffs would be insane to me. They've had the number one net rating for half the year. And there's really a path now for them not to make the playoffs. Did you mention that the Hawks just went 14 and 1?

Like the actual 2026 Atlanta Hawks. Was that even in the weirdness description? Like they didn't just go on like a six game winning streak. They went 14 and 1 in a 15 game span. It honestly should have been. Yeah. I mean, well, there's one, two, seven games left. I was going to say, if the season was like 90 games,

I feel like they could catch Cleveland. They could just keep going. Yeah, and then the Lakers thing on top of it. Like, if you're talking about ways the playoffs could get weird, there could clearly be a 1-8 or a 2-7 upset. Like, if I gave you odds, yes, there will be a 1-8-27 upset versus no, there won't. Probably, like, I don't even know what the odds would be,

but I think that's almost like a 50-50 bet for me. I still would go, no. I mean, who is your upset threat, Charlotte? I would say Detroit. Right, but I'm saying like who, but who's going to beat Detroit? I think Boston would be a possible upset too. At two. I'm prepared for that.

That's the thing. I'm prepared for anything. Who knows? But who's beating? Miami's not beating any of those teams. Orlando's not. Philadelphia. What if Phillies the seventh seed?

You're right. You're right. You're right. No, the odds are we won't get a 27 or a 1-8 upset, but it's way more in play than it's ever been. Look, Philly, I just need, I need my, I just need time. I can't. No, this is what I said to Rahim.

Rahim was all excited about their future odds. And I was like, look, Embed would have to play seven times in two weeks, and I don't think he can do it. Right? Just fundamentally, that's probably not happening. But did you see Paul George yesterday? I did. He looked great.

And they're already doing the spin. Like, you know, maybe this is a blessing in disguise that he missed 25 games because of a band substance. And we plummeted down the standings because into the play in because now he's fresh. Unbelievable. Tyrese Maxie is like, this is cool. I just had to play 40 minutes like every single game until I got hurt. I finally got hurt because I was on a record pace for guards playing a minute. Yeah.

I would not want to see them in the two seven. There's a bunch of teams I'd rather see. I also like, Charlotte as a 1-8 is not ideal. I just bet this is why, this is one of my favorite ideas that I just wish they would adopt. 1-8, I think you get five home games.

Who's against this? The teams that would get less revenue for their home playoff games. 2-2-3. The one seed should be worth something. Look, if you can't, if you can't, and I actually went through this,

I had a meeting with some league officials about a bunch of different things. Oh, look how fancy you are. And I asked about, I asked about like, why can't we just let the one seed pickets upon it out of the plan? And so it's logistics and arena dates. And if you let that happen, then you don't know any of the matchups. All right, those seem to be intractable problems. We need to set the matchups and the TV schedule.

Then give me something. If I've slogged through this 82 game, you know, journey and I'm the number one team, like, I got to get something. I don't I what I shouldn't get is like oh fuck the hornets are eight and I got to deal with this in the first round and I might be down three to going into a game six with Eric Collins losing his mind then again if you can't beat the hornets I guess you don't deserve to win the championship two seven Boston Philly come Boston Philly is always such a great time great rivalry Amtrak corridor a lot of history that's a great time I just think with the three point shooting and the variance of these games. I'm scared every series no matter who I'm playing at this point. Except Orlando.

Except Orlando, who gave up 31 straight points. And by the time people listen to this, might have a new coach. Who knows? It could be, here's our new coach, Penny Hardaway out of nowhere. All right. Anything else where we go? I can't even remember what else we're supposed to talk about. How are you feeling about the Mets? Oh, I know what I want to talk to about really quick. ABS. ABS. Do you watch any baseball this weekend? Yeah, I did. I watched the Mets. The challenge.

It's called ABS. Oh, that, yeah. It's so fast. Like this, Boba Chet did a bad one today. And I thought he was actually going to be right. He tapped it. And it was like, nope, wrong, Boba Chet. I love it.

Most exciting ad we've, I think we've ever had from it. Because first of all, it was half of my text threads all weekend. And I watched every Red Sox game. And the Red Sox fucked up their two ABS's early in the second game. You get two, right? That's it. Fucked them up early. We go into the later parts of the game.

We have the worst umpire of all time behind the plate. And he just keeps messing up, but we have no more challenges left. And it was all my texts for like three hours. So the mess, like we're in hell. The season opener, their very first ABS of the season flipped. It was a three two count flipped a walk to a strikeout. It was called a ball. The match challenged it and it became a strikeout.

Crowd goes nuts. I was like, great, great times. That was awesome. We had the opposite. it, we get the inning-ending strikeout, guy does this, reversed. It's like, oh, my God. Next pitch, same thing.

Reversed again. Now it's like, oh, my God, we're going to lose, and then he got a strikeout. But it was like, it was this added drama. I wasn't expecting. I love that the batters can just do it without asking anybody. Just like, I fucked that.

I'm just hitting my own head. And like, oh, I'm sorry, I screwed the whole team. By the way, you would be, you're the perfect guy to ask about this. Here are some things. that happened in the first the Mets home opener. I don't know if you saw any of this. The singer of the national anthem

plays, this is a real thing, plays George Washington currently in Hamilton. He is a Tony Award winning actor playing the first president of the United States in Hamilton. Forgot the words to the national anthem in the middle of singing at the home opener. Oh, no.

And just like, just put together two verses that don't go together. then later in the game the bets won the game but later in the game they did the Frank Trebin he's just saying there was like a pause

whereas like he's been silent for two like a beat too long and then the wrong lyrics came that didn't match the lyrics they came there were actual lyrics from the Star Spangled Banner but they were just not the ones that he was supposed to say

at that moment and then later in the game in right field two birds crashed into each other and one of them died and Carson Benj to get a towel and pick up the bird and like walk it off the field. They just like, would they crash going for a fly ball? No one.

I did not see video of the birds colliding, but it was not a Randy Johnson and Dave Winfield situation. Oh my God. So, like, apparently just head on. So is that a good sign or a bad sign? This is what I'm saying. They won the game. The anthem thing is kind of funny and I just don't know what to make of any of it.

It was a great weekend for sports. And I was sick for a little bit of it. And it was just an embarrassment of riches to be able to bounce around and watch all kinds of stuff. The ABS thing. Sox are one and two or two and one? Where are we? One and two, two close losses. And on a 25-man roster, they have five holes already.

So feeling good. Great. Feeling good. Thought they were going to be a little more solid. Did you see Project Hail Mary yet? No, but apparently the directors are massive Clippers fans. And so I kind of want to watch it. But have you seen it?

I mean, I love Gosling. I'll watch Gosling. Can't wait to see it. Can't wait to see it. Have you seen Eddie in the Cruisers? I have not. That's going to be the rewatchables after we do LA Confidential tomorrow. The next one after is Eddie in the Cruisers because we've been pushing for it to come back on streaming for five years.

It finally came back. It's all over the place. And after CR month, we felt like we'd earned like it's the end of the dinner when you give the chocolates to your customers. This is going to be the chocolates. Well, I was going to say. LA Confidential is so heavy. Like Russell Crow's performance by itself stresses me out and he breaks the chair.

I'm so stressed out the entire time that I need to like have a cigarette effort. New Chris Ryan character and the LA Confidential rewatchables. Okay. It's Sham Sharania as the LA Confidential reporter from Hushush Magazine. I didn't know if he pulled off.

It was at 9.9 degree difficulty and he nailed it. So that's coming. We have that end Zane Loves. So anyway, LA Confidential. That's coming. Thanks to State Farm for helping us out

with this little live stream on Netflix. Zach is going Tuesday morning. Yeah. We'll see what happens in the weirdest NBA season. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahow and Chris, everybody else at the ringer as well.

Thanks to Netflix. And I will be back on this feed on Tuesday. Must be 21 plus on President's select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in president in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game in problem, call 100 Gambor or 1,800 by reset. Call 88879-77777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland.

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